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Topic: So does creating havoc have a cost? (Read 8289 times)

Overall there are sci-fi ships and soldiers and mechs and enemies that you run into, along with alien monsters. There are larger dropships that roam around in patrols, and if they see you then they will pursue you and have some soldiers start pouring out. So there's this sort of vague City 17 feel in some respects (or that's the intent). But at the same time there are roaming monsters that simply run into you as you move about, and there are wild animals that are both predator and prey that you can hunt and that also hunt each other and you.

So I noticed there are dropships. Are they like police in the Grand Theft Auto games where if you cause havoc they cause escalating responses to deter you? As a kid both myself and my peers found it by far the amusing feature of the games. Even now if I get bored playing of those games I will create a save and then pursue to see just how much destruction I can cause before my well deserved wasting. Alternatively, dodging those police units were actually a deep affair, since they usually stuck to main roads with the occasional random search.

I do not expect the dropships are like the police. I imagine them more like isolated units but was curious.

I got into GTA with the first one, liked the second one even better, hated 3, and skipped the rest until GTA5, which I love. And indeed, my favorite thing as a teen and now was basically to deal with the insane police and see how long I could live.

Fun side story about that was that apparently they were making some sort of other game and had a bug where the police just went nuts. That turned out to be so much fun that they scrapped the other game and turned it into the first GTA.

Okay, now that we've established I like that sort of thing, let me answer your actual question.

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DropshipsThe core idea behind dropships is that -- in the early and middle game in particular -- these are really massive and scary and you probably can't deal with them at all. Aka you don't even have weapons that can reach them.

Well, that's actually hard to say with full concreteness: I have a couple of gradations of dropship in mind, and that would be the biggest kind, anyway. I have also considered smaller dropships that cruise around the landscape and are lower (and therefore harder to see), and thus also probably inherently in range of some of your weapons at least.

The core thing about a dropship, though, is that it's not primarily an attack vessel. There will be more fighter-like craft, and I've been considering some things that can even shell the heck out of your area in a mortar-like sense. But the primary purpose of a dropship is to deploy mobile squads of bad guys. Depending on a few factors (more on that in a sec), it might be massive robot threats, or human traitors, or alien ground troops, or whatever. Likely not monsters, as you'd just run into those through exploring.

Attracting NoticeOkay, so we know I like the GTA star system. If you think about it, AI Progress in AI War is also kind of a similar system. I intend to have something along those lines in this game as well. However, unlike those other games, it would have that level of attention/notoriety attached to your BASE, rather than to you personally.

You'll either be taking over bases, building them, or living a more nomadic lifestyle. If you choose to have a larger base as a place to live (which is a good idea for a variety of reasons, but the nomadic style also could be fun just as a divergent way to do things), then the first thing is that you have to accept that it WILL be destroyed at some point.

The first patrols and whatnot won't be that bad, and you can beat off the waves of guys in the night without too much trouble if you know what you're doing at all. But after some number of days, probably about 40ish by default (and yes this would be able to be turned off), the waves will be so freaking bad (in terms of the kinds of enemies you're facing, mainly, versus just being spammed with tons of them) that keeping your base intact is extremely unlikely. You're wiser to evacuate most of your goods and other stored gear a bit before they start absolutely storming the base to death.

At that point you can start with a new base and things reset a bit in terms of how much attention the authorities are paying to that base. This is the somewhat circular nature of the endgame that I was talking about in another thread. Well, it's the defensive side of things, anyway. There is no way to build up to the point that you are "completely invulnerable," like happens in all other games of this type. That has no meaning here. Unless you disable the option, eventually you will lose all that you've built at a given base.

About BasesBases, clearly, are not something to get too attached to. I think that there's a nice middle-ground where in these sorts of games you can build a really strong base and have fun defending it. But if it never gets TRULY tested by the enemy, then there's no real sense of accomplishment past a certain point. These are bases you're building for purposes of defense, not aesthetics; so defense in depth and so forth, versus building a replica of middle earth or whatever. There are plenty of other games that focus on the building for the sake of creativity alone.

Here there's plenty of creativity, but it's also about creativity in terms of how to deal with the stronger waves. But I also want to be clear that we're talking about very long timeframes here. If 40 days is the number you're playing at where after that the waves just get untenable, and if 50 minutes is the length of realtime per game day, that's freaking 33 hours of gametime before a base becomes near impossible for most people to defend. And for someone who can stretch those defenses even longer, there's a lot of pride that I can imagine would go with that.

For people who want to play a more aggressive, brutal version of the game, I could see them making it so that the day scale is something like 15 or 20 instead of 40, and then it's just incredibly tense in general.

There's also nothing that says you have to have one base at any given time. Each base would have its own AIP (in the AI War sense) or wanted level (in the GTA sense). And if you leave the bases untended, they'll go unmolested... but you'll also have to brave the nights out alone. That also is plenty of fun. The exact mechanics on when things get more heated on your base versus when you can ignore it is hard for me to exactly say, because I don't want there to be easy ways to just game the system. Suffice it to say, monsters as well as dropships will be after you in the wilderness if you're out there instead of holed up in your base. There are pros and cons.

All Of This Was Just About Defense!I still haven't really addressed your core question, which was about destroying stuff increasing your wanted level, per se. That is... not something I'm sure about just yet. I don't want to penalize destruction, because it's both fun and necessary. I think that the wanted system in Red Faction: Guerrilla did a pretty good job with that. There were certain key things that if you destroyed them, the enemy would get pissed off, and many many other things that you could destroy as much as you wanted. Probably something like that will happen here.

If you're playing a more nomadic style of game, either temporarily or long-term, then yes there would be some amount of "heat" on you, personally, rather than on your base. There's an offense side to this game, and taking down or capturing enemy fortresses or towns is a big thing. When you do those things, or try to do those things, the enemy is... not happy. So that elicits a different kind of response.

Exactly how the offensive part of the game will work out is something I'm less sure about. From the defensive side, I know how my wife and I played 7 Days to Die, and what was so frustrating about the lack of escalation there, etc. So it's super duper easy to know exactly what I want. With the offensive side, the Assault mode in UT2003 or the way you capture towns in Just Cause 3, or the way that you can attack certain fortresses in Red Faction: Guerrilla are all influences to be sure. All of those rely heavily on respawning enemies and a lack of permanence, however, and I don't want to do that.

Yes there should be enemy reinforcements (GTA does a great job of making this feel realistic-ish), but in general things should feel more dynamic and natural. And things I do that cause damage should be remembered (no biggie, there). If I leave for a long time, then sure they should rebuild and maybe even reinforce. But if I die and then come right back, things should still be in a pretty warzone way. The game keeping track of how many times you died between trying to start taking an enemy stronghold and actually taking it is another one of those "scoreboard" type of things.

Also, I guess that probably the wanted level STILL wouldn't be on you even in those cases. Rather it would be more of an alert level on the enemy stronghold in general. If you and I play co-op together, we shouldn't be able to have me go in and lay down one round of wreckage and then they're super mad at me, but you come in and I leave and they're just like "oh hai chemical_art! things are great here!"

It's Not PersonalFrom their perspective there's not a lot of difference between us -- we're all "filthy human remnants." They're interested in defending things that we're attacking, or in attacking things of ours that they discover. The more force we bring to bear on one of their things, the more alert they become there, and the more cavalry they call in.

When they find a base that belongs to us filthy mongrels, then they're going to want to stamp it out as if you find ants in your house. Of course... they have a bad habit of sending in the minimum required force to take care of such things. So when troop #27 goes missing, they send in troop #28 the next day to try again, but a bit bigger and badder that time.

Late GameIn terms of the late game, there would be some sort of cap where things just never settle down below a certain point on offense or defense. By that point in the game you have better weapons and so on anyway, so it would be ludicrously and boringly easy to have new things starting so easily.

I've actually be considering two things as possibilities, either as alternate modes or just as the way the game plays in general. Possibly that, on the one hand, things keep escalating so much that eventually you WILL lose, no matter what, because things are just so very darn hard. But, by the same token, possibly things becoming that hard also opens up some sort of weakness in the enemy and a chance to actually win the game.

Normally survival games aren't won or lost, but I like the idea of a given map not being played forever and ever. It's nice to mix things up.

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hu so there's going to be stealth mechanics as well? not always stealth in literaly avoiding peoples lines of sight and stuff but also avoiding the attention of the big bads? are weather you get more wanted or not also depend on things like for instance if you people alive that saw you doing what ever I was that you were doing among other things?.

I'm not a fan of having to look around and see if people are noticing me, or if my horse is watching me and turning me in (could not find relevant penny arcade comic; am sad panda).

In general the bad guys are going to have a "shoot him on sight" sort of attitude. I think that more of the things that cause spikes in enemy interest in you are related to the equivalent of property damage and so forth.

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I'm not a fan of having to look around and see if people are noticing me, or if my horse is watching me and turning me in (could not find relevant penny arcade comic; am sad panda).

In general the bad guys are going to have a "shoot him on sight" sort of attitude. I think that more of the things that cause spikes in enemy interest in you are related to the equivalent of property damage and so forth.

well okay then personally I dig that but its usually better in games like hit man really than what this game sounds like its going to be like but I was thinking more along the lines of for example if you kick the crap out of a supply convoy(for examples sake doesn't sound like a thing the big bad will be setting up) but murder everybody involved in then the big bad become more alerted not persificly to you but that SOMETHING is out there being a problem in the sort of gorilla warfare style personally I would super dig that. edit yikes! I forgot to delete that last part before I posted it

Ah, I was wondering when someone was going to manage to get a random torrent of information out of you

All sounds pretty good to me. Actually some of it reminds me of one of my favorite indie games from a developer I like, which is 5089... though, sorta an upgraded version of 3089, but same difference... in the focus of things like base assault and capture and things of that nature. And the number of different ways of approaching things. Those are good things to hear about for a game like this.

I particularly like the idea of bases that actually get attacked heavily; alot of times in survival or sandbox games, there's sort of an encouragement to build a defensive base... but nothing truly threatening ever attacks you. Heaven forbid that the player's creative disjointed crappy house actually get blown up by something.

Really the only thing I"m ever really against in a game like this is stealth. At this point I doubt I have to explain why I dont like that.

All in all, it sounds good! Have you really not thought up a name yet though?

How will players be able to defend bases? Will there be some sort of towerdefense gameplay? Being a lover of AI War's towerdef's part, I can only wish you'll do your best on this. Tell us. Will players be able to spend resources in crafting towers? Will we be able to hire/build human/robot NPC soldiers? Will there be traps to put in the enemy's pathfinding? (Like AI War and Dwarf Fortress?)

How will players be able to attack? Will there be just equipment and weapons for the heavy work, like looting/building a mortar of some sort and go siege the nextdoor enemy castle? Or some more complex player-made things like a minecraftian TNT cannon? Or some more "management" gameplay with NPC assault squads? Or "break in and beat them all" with a regular combat system? Then drop C4 on each pillar, get out and "clic-BOOM"?

How will players be able to defend bases? Will there be some sort of towerdefense gameplay? Being a lover of AI War's towerdef's part, I can only wish you'll do your best on this. Tell us. Will players be able to spend resources in crafting towers? Will we be able to hire/build human/robot NPC soldiers? Will there be traps to put in the enemy's pathfinding? (Like AI War and Dwarf Fortress?)

How will players be able to attack? Will there be just equipment and weapons for the heavy work, like looting/building a mortar of some sort and go siege the nextdoor enemy castle? Or some more complex player-made things like a minecraftian TNT cannon? Or some more "management" gameplay with NPC assault squads? Or "break in and beat them all" with a regular combat system? Then drop C4 on each pillar, get out and "clic-BOOM"?

Secret Pumping Facility => ON

hopefully all of that and more I wonder if ill be able to breed chickens in this game.

About BasesBases, clearly, are not something to get too attached to. I think that there's a nice middle-ground where in these sorts of games you can build a really strong base and have fun defending it. But if it never gets TRULY tested by the enemy, then there's no real sense of accomplishment past a certain point.

[...]

Here there's plenty of creativity, but it's also about creativity in terms of how to deal with the stronger waves. But I also want to be clear that we're talking about very long timeframes here. If 40 days is the number you're playing at where after that the waves just get untenable, and if 50 minutes is the length of realtime per game day, that's freaking 33 hours of gametime before a base becomes near impossible for most people to defend. And for someone who can stretch those defenses even longer, there's a lot of pride that I can imagine would go with that.

So bases == dwarf forts?

Apologies if this was already asked and answered: Will there be an option (even if only as a "trainer"/easy mode setting) for any kind of permanent "safe zone" where the player can catch some R&R without ever worrying about the enemy eventually coming in? Nothing fancy, just a "shack" with a small item cache and limited customizability.

1. I also am not a fan of stealth in a game like this. Not in the sense of how it's traditionally done. Avoiding the enemy is one thing, but "stealth systems" are quite another.

2. For defending bases, my hope is that it will be something that you can pretty much either do on your own as an FPS player, or else you don't do it at all. I'm not a huge fan of just setting up lots of turrets and then running between them and repairing them. If the game has turrets you can put out, then pretty soon that becomes the only and optimal way to play because they are such force multipliers. So I'm really against having non-player turrets if I can at all avoid it.

3. Then again, just going on the opposite end of the spectrum, it might be that turrets are indeed a thing, BUT you can't repair them (perhaps they auto-repair over time), and they are expensive to build in terms of crafting materials, etc. Some degree of automation to defenses is a must (in 7 Days to Die it's spikes and trenches for me), but exactly what the balance will be there depends largely on playtesting and so on. But I basically don't want people being a Tribes 2 engineer.

4. Will you be able to have allied guards or robots or whatever else? Maybe. I'd certainly be all for it, and the complexity is only medium... for the most part. But it does take extra art and a variety of other things, so it would probably be a kickstarter stretch goal.

5. There is definitely no management gameplay here, for attacks or defense. That slows things down way too much. I'm all about the speed and fluidity with this game. A lot of survival games get bogged down in making everything slow -- I want to make things fast and fun. Yes you'll be able to use some vehicles to soften the enemy base, or even suicide-slam them into the base (ala Just Cause 3). The first vehicle is already in the game. It's a low-altitude hovercraft that is really great for traversal, but which has no guns at all.

6. I don't really want to get into Rainbow 6 style assault squads. I see you as more of either a lone gunman or a group of friends in co-op.

7. I don't see an attack on an enemy base as being a singular thing, which is a key note. I'd see you doing a number of raids to accomplish a number of objectives of your choosing. Aka, you might raid one time to weaken X part of the perimeter, another time to take out Y guard post, another time to set up a bomb in location Z, another time to ram a vehicle in and then actually hit a key objective and escape while blowing the bomb, etc.

In other words: that whole thing that you're thinking about with the complexity of taking down an enemy base is something I LOVE. However, I prefer to have more freewheeling persistent choice in how to do it. And I want to do it all, myself. I don't want to be ordering squads around that do big parts of it for me. I don't want to be in planning map screens. Heck, I might be doing a raid or two in just to figure out what my objectives even ARE. My personal, self-chosen objectives, I mean. Do I care to loot prior to capturing, or do I want to destroy, or what? Etc.

In multiplayer this would go faster because you can do more things at once -- and indeed you could divide and conquer as a squad in that sort of scenario. Sounds like fun! But I don't think it's any less fun in solo. Well, all of that is on paper right now, but it's also based on my past experience with other games.

8. On the idea of safe zones, I don't see why not. That might be a really good anti-griefing setup, anyway. I've been plotting out the starting area of the game as being kind of a rebel complex where you can actually load up on a number of guns and gear before setting out into the world (why the heck make you start from absolute scratch on the first day?), and keeping that as a safe zone would make sense.

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The first thing I thought about after reading this was the "Mercenaries" game franchise. The idea that you work for a "rebel" group(s) whom may provide a true safe zone and also a "first wave" of NPCs to assist you in goals but that you ultimately are the star. Not at all I am sure what you had in mind, but the idea of the game flow being "we have a complex plan. <honk honk> I and you 5 brave NPC's will try to see if we can make it happen!" That poor wave of NPC's would provide a solid base for your breach, but the effect was more morale improving then actual combat ability.

The idea of multiple factions is extremely labor intensive so not what I had intended. But...erm, just the first thing to pop into my head. It just that one game reminded me of the personal freedom I had to engage the game. "Do I park my helicopter outside the base, blow up all the threats to my helicopter, then haphazardly run back to it to unleash havoc?" "Do I just blow a wall down and lead a vehicle full of people into it, tell them all to get out, and hope for the best?" "Do I lead a powerful tank inside with one gunner, and try to nurse my gunner for as long as I can?" "Screw it all! I hate this mission! Carpet bomb it all! I don't care if it costs 5 times the mission reward, I need it for a longer term goal!"

That sort of freedom is the sort of thing I also love. I'm just not too fond of having dumb human-standins that are around that then people complain about the AI on. But being able to park my Batmobile wherever I want and having it able to defend itself while I'm away is something I'm a fan of, haha.

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